. . . Got food? Love it!​Ain't too much that can make me happier than a bag of Doritos and some peanut M&Ms. So, yes, you can eat in this class.

You should know, however, that there are some things that I have absolutely NO patience for. If you eat in this classroom, clean up after yourself. I will consider it disrespectful otherwise.

Let me explain. I take you back to when I started college... 1989... at Stanford University... where it was more likely for me to see someone who looked like me working as kitchen staff, as office assistant, or as a custodial manager. I certainly had a few faculty of color who looked like me, but that was rare. Today, I stand here as a tenured, associate professor in the 21st century and not much has changed. I dare you to count the number of Black and Latin@ female faculty here at the college. Those numbers really look no different from when I was in college more than two decades ago in a previous century!

What does my story mean? It means that in spaces such as this one, the people who will have to clean up after YOUR mess are people who look like me. As a college student, my fellow, white wealthy peers TORE up the common spaces given their complete comfort with having Black women clean up after them later (which could take hours after the weekends). As an eighteen year old, I was offended and am just as offended as a grown Black woman today. Be mindful of the invisibilized hands and bodies that make your spaces livable. As simple as it sounds, if you clean up after yourself, it shows that you can treat our world and shared space as a community rather than as a plantation where you imagine yourself to be master.

As for the James Brown playing in the background? Well, that has a special context. Since a few people expressed their concern that I would share this story on a webpage for my classes (and talk about myself as a Stanford graduate, no less), I decided that I would provide them with a special soundtrack rather than silence my experiences. Enjoy!